The One Role I’d Do Again, Same Cast Required

by Chris Peterson

I put up a post the other day on Facebook asking a simple question: what role would you love to play again?

I expected a lot of obvious answers. The dream roles. The bucket-list parts. The “I finally aged into it” responses. And sure, those showed up. But what surprised me was how many people didn’t just name a role. They named a time. A cast. A room. A version of themselves that existed for a few weeks or months and then disappeared when the set came down.

That’s what cracked something open for me.

Because the role I keep coming back to isn’t just a role. It’s Little Shop of Horrors. Junior year of college. Mr. Mushnik. A cardigan, a bad attitude, and a moustache barely hanging on with glue.

I loved playing Mushnik. I mean, truly loved it. He’s small and frantic and ridiculous and somehow thinks he’s the smartest person in the room while clearly not being that. So, yes, relatable. But what I miss isn’t just stepping back into his shoes.

I miss them.

I miss Brice as Seymour, doing that beautifully anxious, sincere thing that made you root for him even when he was actively making terrible decisions. I miss Megan as Audrey, who brought so much heart and quiet strength that you almost forgot how funny she was. I miss Feeney, Caryn, and Kristin as the Urchins, who could freeze a room with harmony. I miss Kevin, somewhere inside that plant, committing fully to a nightly CrossFit routine so Audrey II could live, breathe, and threaten us all.

I miss being directed by Fred. I miss the side chats with the late, great Joe Cook.

There’s something special about productions like that. The kind where chemistry isn’t forced. You know how they’ll catch you if something goes wrong. You know how a glance will land. You know when to get out of the way and when to lean in.

And yes, part of this is nostalgia. I was a junior in college. I had fewer obligations. More energy. A deeply misguided belief that I had anything figured out. But it’s more than that.

It’s the shared rhythm. The repetition. The strange intimacy of doing the same thing over and over with the same people and finding it alive every night. You don’t just put on a show in those moments. You build a tiny world together. And then one day, you close it up, hand in your costume, and everyone goes back to their real lives like that world never existed. Except it did.

I think that’s why the responses to that post hit so hard. People aren’t chasing applause. They’re chasing connection. They’re missing rooms where they felt fully themselves. Where they were known. Where the work mattered because the people did.

Also, to be clear, I would absolutely put that Mushnik cardigan back on tomorrow if given the chance.

Theatre teaches you how to say goodbye. Repeatedly. You get good at it. You learn the muscle memory of moving on. But every once in a while, a show sneaks past your defenses. It stops being about the role and becomes about the people standing next to you while you do it.

That’s the stuff that lingers. That’s the ache. That’s the reason the question wasn’t “what role would you play again?” but, quietly, “who would you want to be back in the room with?”

And honestly? Same cast. Same chaos. Same heart.